Regional leaders meet in Uganda over Congo

KAMPALA, Uganda 
Tensions are rising between Congo and neighbor Rwanda as Congo tries to fight a rebellion in its east that it accuses Rwanda of supporting. Regional leaders traveled to Uganda's capital on Monday for a summit aimed at easing the conflict that has plagued Congo since April.

Uganda is hardly a neutral venue, however, as the country is also trying to shrug off allegations that its military is fighting alongside M23 rebels, a group of former government soldiers who staged a mutiny and then engaged Congolese forces in intense battles that sent thousands of terrified villagers fleeing into Uganda and Rwanda.

Last month Congo's President Joseph Kabila told reporters in Kinshasa, the country's capital, that Rwanda's support for M23 was an "open secret" and that his government would investigate accusations that Uganda also backs the rebels.

Uganda's foreign affairs minister has described the allegations as "rubbish," and the eastern African country's leaders now say they are investigating reports that M23 rebels have been seen wearing Ugandan military uniforms and that a rebel commander gets around in a vehicle associated with the Ugandan army.

Rwanda, which has been singled out as providing support for the rebels in a U.N. report, denies any involvement in the Congo rebellion.

The Congolese government said last week it wouldn't negotiate with the new M23 rebel movement, but that dialogue is possible with neighboring Rwanda.

The presidents of Rwanda and Congo were expected to arrive Monday for the two-day summit that begins Tuesday. Leaders from 11 countries forming the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region will participate in the summit.

The meeting in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, follows a similar one last month in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where regional leaders resolved to work together to end the violence in eastern Congo. The summit established that the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region "shall work with the AU and the U.N. for an immediate establishment of a neutral international force to eradicate" Congo's newest rebellion and other fighters terrorizing civilians in the country's mineral-rich east. The African Union said it could help by sending soldiers.

Congo already has the largest peacekeeping force in the world, with nearly 20,000 U.N. peacekeepers serving. But Congo's army â(EURO)" ill-equipped, ill-paid and demoralized â(EURO)" is accused of pillaging and raping civilians as often as are the rebels and militias, putting U.N. peacekeepers in an invidious position.

East Congo's conflict is a hangover from Rwanda's 1994 genocide. Hundreds who participated in the killings of some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus escaped into Congo and still fight there today.

The M23 rebels are the latest incarnation of a group of Congolese Tutsi rebels set up to fight Rwandan Hutu rebels in Congo. The group is allegedly led by renegade Gen. Bosco Ntaganda, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court but whose current whereabouts are unknown. The M23 fighters launched their rebellion earlier this year after accusing the Congolese government of failing to hold up their end of a March 2009 peace deal that integrated them into the army.